CHILDHOOD

**NATIONAL AND KAPODISTRIAN UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS ** **PEDAGOGY DEPARTMENT IN PRIMARY EDUCATION ** **SECTION OF HUMANITIES ** **SOCIAL SCIENCES RESEARCH LABORATORY ** **childhood2013@gmail.com** **Conference on the ****Τ ****opic: ** **//“Childhood: //** **//Sociological, Cultural, Historical and Pedagogical Aspects” //** **11 - 14 of April 2013 ** **__Under the Auspices of the Center for Research, Science and Education ( __****__ΚΕ __****__. __****__Ε __****__P. __****__ΕΚ __****__<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">.) __** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">are going to hold a Conference in Athens, 11-14 of April 2013, in collaboration with national and international research organizations, on the topic: **//“Childhood: Sociological, Cultural, Historical and Pedagogical Aspects”.//** //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">As child and childhood is a matter of special attention in the field of social sciences and pedagogy and a general object of inter- and multi-scientific interest, we believe that the conduct of the said Conference concern most of the colleagues. // //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">The comparative and intercultural analysis has revealed a variety of childhoods, rather than a childhood as a unique and universal phenomenon. The changes to the experience of childhood depend on the country, the social class, the gender, the nationality, fact that means that childhood is a variable of social analysis, which cannot be separated from the other variables. Childhood does not refer to a specific person or child but focus on the general condition of being a child. It is a social and cultural concept, idea and category and relates to a difficultly and arbitrarily defined period of human life, as that definition is made subjectively from the adults. In every case, childhood is not a static object and universal fact of human nature with naturalistic background, without that to cancel the basic meaning of biological relationships. It is a relative and varying framework of ideas, which define the experience of being a child, consisting a varying in space and time sociological category that cannot be studied isolated from the rest of society, as the latter constructs it.The social and cultural invention of childhood reconfirms the dramatic change to its image and to the conceptions of child growth generally. It is a fact that they differ in time and space, that there is dissension between not only to researchers but also to common people in different periods about these matters and that in different phases of history have been emerged conceptions of childhood, which have been written down as dominant, representing its invention or its recodification in each period. // //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">The difference of living conditions and of the level of welfare between children of upper, middle and lower social classes that characterizes childhood creates “many childhoods”. There is not, then, a “childhood,” there are many “childhoods”. What happens with the social dangers which threaten childhood today? Burst of violence, of domestic violence, of school violence, sexual abuse and neglect of children, pedophilia on the internet, growth of child delinquency? Furthermore, although children considered valuable for the society, they still remain a category with high poverty rate. // //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">As the child is mainly studied within the framework of the areas where it historically exists, namely in the context of the family and the education, it is an issue of particular importance the study of the great changes that these institutions face nowadays, let alone that the interpretation, the understanding, the construction and of course the sociological and sociohistorical study of childhood nowadays tends to accrue by combined investigation, of both, the operation of social structure and the action of child as a social agent. // //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">The state has to guarantee children and to face the disfunction that happens into the framework of the school, the family and the society, to decide which the interest of the child is and to ensure it in the long-term.” // <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Abstracts (up to 250 words) can be submitted up to the 15th of January 2013. The abstracts will be published before the beginning of the conference. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">The full texts can be submitted up to the 15th of February and they will be assessed by the system of adjudicators. Whoever submits a contribution according to schedule and does not receive a rejective answer up to 10th of March, is considered acceptable as contributor in the conference. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">The abstracts and the full texts of the contributions should be written in English or in Greek. Both of them should be sent by e-mail in electronic form at the electronic address: **childhood2013@gmail.com**
 * [[file:ATHENS CHILDHOOD CONFERENCE CALL FOR PAPERS-2.doc]] ||   ||
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">the Social Sciences Research Laboratory, Section of Humanities, Pedagogy Department in Primary Education, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens,
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">the Research Center "Childhoods.Societies", Wuppertal University,
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">the Hellenic Educational Society,
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">the Hellenic Sociological Society,
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">the European Sociological Association, Childhood Stream,
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">There will be no registration fee neither for contributors nor participators
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">There will be given participation certificates